Reference no: EM133306816

Assignment: WWF Brazil focuses on saving the planet with more efficient project management

Conserving one of the world's most important and biodiverse regions is no small undertaking. With a third of the world's remaining tropical forests, the Amazon helps stabilize local and global climate-and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has been working for 40 years to protect it. That's why state-of-the art project management and reporting tools are a must. The non-profit organisation turned to Microsoft Project Online to help it replace slow, inefficient, and outdated spreadsheet-based processes, so it could focus on its mission to preserve nature by harmonizing human activity with the conservation of biodiversity and the rational use of natural resources, for the benefit of the citizens of today and of future generations. When you're fighting to protect a natural environment intimately linked with the health of the planet, a lack of efficiency isn't an option. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has worked in Brazil since 1971, but in 1996 it set up a permanent office with a goal to help conserve the country's unique biomes. Across an area comprising the Cerrado savannas, the Atlantic Forest, the Pantanal wetlands, and the Amazon, WWF Brazil carries out some of the WWF's most important work. Home to one in 10 known species and many of the world's endangered species-including jaguars, sloths, and river dolphins-the Amazon has enormous biodiversity, and WWF Brazil works tirelessly to protect it. This vital work requires two things: organisation and funding. But outdated, manual processes were impeding the organisation's ability to carry out its work-and jeopardizing its reputation with funders.

A project management problem

Across five offices and several teams, WWF Brazil had been using various manual processes for budget tracking and project implementation. The mostly spreadsheet-based setup limited visibility across projects and restricted the ability of WWF Brazil to perform-and funders were taking note. "We were not executing projects the way we were supposed to, simply because we lacked the tools to do it," says Marcelo Brasileiro, CFO of WWF Brazil. "It was hard to show donors the value of their investments." It wasn't just a problem with project execution. WWF Brazil found itself spending a huge amount of time on reporting, both to satisfy donor requests and to show strategic alignment with the larger WWF organisation. Every six months, crucial operations would halt as these reports were put together. The project management office spent up to 40 percent of its time gathering information-time that could have been spent on the organisation's crucial mission.

The right choice

Ultimately, WWF Brazil needed a set of project management tools to help boost efficiency, improve visibility on project execution and strategic information, and better demonstrate the impact of donor investments. It wanted a simple, scalable cloud-based solution that could unite everyone in the organisation, so it chose Microsoft Project Online. "We are a small organisation, so we can't manage a lot of technology in-house," Danuzia Lima, CIO of WWF Brazil explains. "We looked at Primavera, C8, and Runrun.it, but we thought Project Online was the most robust solution, and it seamlessly integrates with the Office 365 platform we were already using." With the help of IT partner IUNEX, WWF Brazil deployed the platform in October 2017. In less than a year, WWF Brazil was running 98 projects-85 percent of its operations-with Project Online, and it has already generated some notable successes.

An instant impact

With Project Online, the data-visualization capabilities in Microsoft Power BI, and the collaboration tools in Microsoft Office 365, WWF Brazil monitors projects and records KPIs in near real time. Then it quickly and easily communicates and shares results both inside and outside the organisation. "This tool has not only brought efficiency, but also improved trust with our donors. I haven't received weekly calls to update the financial and/or technical progress as I used to. That is because some of our donors already have access to this kind of information in real time," says Cristiano Cegana, Project Manager of WWF Brazil. "Before, everyone had their own assignments on their own computer. But now, everything is centralized on the project website," says Lima. "That means everyone can access information and gain visibility into results. This transparency is a major improvement for us." In fact, WWF Brazil's new project management capabilities have been capturing the attention of people outside of the organisation, too. "The Minister of the Environment came to us because they were looking to outsource the project management of a big biodiversity project worth $13 million," Brasileiro continues. "They were looking for an organisation with a good project management process. When we showed what we can do with Project Online, they were like, 'my goodness, we found the right team!'"

Reporting made easy

Since implementing Project Online, WWF Brazil has been able to easily produce information in a way that is useful-not just for donors, but also for strategic decision-making internally. "We're no longer spending 40 percent of our time on reports," Brasileiro continues. "Now we have all the information we need at our fingertips, anytime, anywhere, whereas in the past we've waited up to 30 days for it. This helps us to have ready answers for funders about the status of projects." Soon donors will access information about organisational efficiency and performance online, so WWF Brazil can more easily demonstrate the value of their contributions-and attract new donors for future projects. Perhaps most important, WWF Brazil can now spend the time that was dedicated to compiling reports on what it does best-working to harmonize human activity with the conservation of biodiversity. "Before we had this platform, we only had spreadsheets, and lots of errors," says Cegana. "Now we spend less time putting together reports, so we are more effective and more efficient across the organisation."

A brighter future

With its technical staff all working on the same project management concepts and procedures, Brasileiro is convinced of the solution's benefits. "Using Microsoft Project Online, there is no doubt that we are more effective at our core mission," he says. "We have seen a 10 percent increase in productivity since we've put the solution in place." WWF Brazil hopes that this 10 percent might just be enough to make the difference in this critical region (Brasileiro, 2019)

QUESTION 1: Based on the case study, critically discuss the challenges that WWF were experiencing with regards to project management.

QUESTION 2: Having identified and discussed the challenges from the case study, illustrate how the WWF resolved these challenges and expand on the results of the solutions implemented.